Monday, 23 December 2013

Christmas is one festival which is celebrated with much gusto in India just like the festival of lights- Diwali. It brings with it cheer , joy and Holidays! :) Our school celebrates Christmas with a lot of enthusiasm. Each teacher in school has become a Secret Santa for another teacher. Everybody receives a message/gift/ basically something to uplift the persons spirit. I think it is a wonderful way to appreciate each other and make somebody's day. I have been relying heavily on Pinterest to find some creative gift ideas. These are a few that i sent across:

This was a pack of popcorn with a tag that said "For a very popular teacher". I downloaded the template from Domesticatedlady.com

I also sent a pair of scissors with a note that said "You are a cut above the rest"

This was a chocolate which i wrapped in white paper and made a snowman on it to give a festive feel.

Classroom decorations were in full swing and my door idea came from pinterest.

Since , children always talk about what all they would like to get from Santa during Christmas, i thought it would be an appropriate time to introduce the concept of giving and why its important. I used the book, "The giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.

Children made illustrations on what all they would like to give to others.

While most talked about giving materialistic things, some sweeties really got thinking and came up with wonderful responses

It touched my heart to see how fantastically children responded to the idea of giving to others.

And since we are talking about giving, I made few printable's of Christmas songs. You can download them for free by clicking on the images below.

Monday, 16 December 2013

Last week, i got an opportunity to visit a fabulous school in my city. The school follows an integral approach to education and for me, it was a riveting and an enriching experience as i was oblivious to this
kind of approach to education.The schoolprimarily believes in developing expression, observation, imagination, concentration, exploration, discovery and listening skills in children. The interactions i had with people in the school were captivating and thought provoking. I am no expert in Integral education but i would like to share my understanding of it through this post. Integral education looks at the totality of a person. The practitioners of this system believe that no part of being is superfluous and hence every part needs to be educated. There are 5 important aspects to education: physical, vital, mental, spiritual and psychic. Recognizing the voice of our physic being is important. It is a tool which is within all of us and listening to it is what will make us better human beings. To read more about the 5 aspects of education, you can follow the link: Integral education

Many a times as an educator i feel that the burden of following a curriculum and expecting all children to perform at the same level does prove to be stressful and the love for learning that we want to inculcate in our children somehow gets lost. But integral education makes learning a life long process. It teaches us to connect and listen to our inner voice and not let it become submissive.

I intend on reading the book: Igniting Brilliance: Integral education for the 21st Century by Willow Dea to get a better perspective on Integral Education. I will share my thoughts on it soon.

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Appreciation of any kind is imperative for an individual's growth. But i feel that in the field of Teaching, it is even more vital as there is no monetary motivation for teachers. So what encourages teachers? Is it their students success, self motivation, peer appreciation, inspiring mentors or simply a desire to better oneself and make a bigger difference in the lives that one touches? For me, motivation is a cocktail of all the above things. When my students respond positively to my lessons, i feel motivated. When they shower me with their love by giving me a hug early in the morning or making a card, i feel ecstatic. When parents tell me how much their kids missed me in the summer break and wanted to come back to school, i feel appreciated. And i think it is these little things in life which makes a teachers world go round.

Just today a little girl in my class made a drawing for me. She said i was a beautiful princess with a jeweled crown and a diamond necklace (WOW!)I loved the diamond necklace part...jokes apart, her sweet gesture made my day.

I am on a motivation high these days. My school organizes an annual appreciation event, where employees(teachers, administrators, support staff) get recognized and praised for their efforts. I was chosen by my peers for inspiring them the most.

It made me feel great that my work inspires others. I owe my learning to a lot of people in this field. I have already mentioned Deanna Jump in one of my previous posts.She inspires me in my day to day teaching. My first mentor - Mrs Bagnato at The American Embassy School blew me off with her innovative ideas and introduced me to a whole lot of concepts that i still do in my class. Dr Bindu, Dean of NPSI School is a dynamic leader whose passion for teaching influenced me a great deal. Expressing gratitude and appreciation positively impacts individuals. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life we forget how much we have and concentrate only on what we don't have. We don't appreciate others and forget to thank god for the things he has given us.

In class, I encourage my little sweeties to appreciate their friends on a regular basis. During circle time, they say one nice thing about a friend. We also catch each other doing the right things and praising that effort. Thank-you's are also a big thing in my class. I am intending to do a a mini lesson on appreciating what we have and the importance of being thankful by using the book "I am thankful each day" by P K Hallinan. I will do a post soon on it.

Till then, think of somebody/something you are thankful for and appreciate it. :)

Thursday, 5 December 2013

I worked on some writing sheets for my little kiddos. They are super simple and doesn't burden the kids with the pressure of writing. It has both uppercase and lowercase tracing and space to practice independent writing. This could be used by teachers in a small group or could be sent for home practice. Parents can also download them from my TPT store for additional practice.At the moment, i am only posting the worksheets for letters a-e. I will post the rest soon.

Monday, 2 December 2013

I love teaching letters and words to my little kids. It gives me immense joy when they start reading. It starts with letters , then words and finally sentences. It is a wonderful process and a great high for a teacher when she sees her students actually reading books. In fact in school, my English teachers were always my favorite teachers. They really inspired me to read and do well in the subject. Another person who is responsible for inculcating in me a love for the language , is my dad. He used to take me to a book store every Sunday to buy story books. I used to love the Famous Five and Goosebumps series. He has a stupendous vocabulary and reads at least one book in a week. Well i haven't been able to match up to him, but reading forms a significant part of my life. Books make me happy and i love collecting books for my little ones. Story time is my favorite time in the class. It is the only time in the class when there is utmost silence and no wiggles :), the stories do their magic!

In Kindergarten, we start the year by reading letters and their sounds and then move on to CVC words.
My school follows the whole reading and phonetic approach to teach language , therefore, i introduce sight words right from the beginning. Since sight words have to be memorized as a whole word by sight it can be a bit daunting for the little ones. I introduce the concept by bringing in a magic hen who lays magic eggs( High frequency words). Children say a chant so the magic hen can give a word. We search inside the plastic eggs and find the word.

Then children sing a song to the tune of Bingo:
There was a sight word for the day and 'the' was the sight word
T-H-E, T-H-E, T-H-E
and The was the sight word.

Each child gets the egg with the sight word printed on it. They then color it and take it home to create their own word wall.

I found a fantastic idea on Pinterest to have a password for the day. It is printed near my class door and i change the word everyday. Whenever children go out for a special, they have to tell the password before exiting.

We also use sight word wands while reading books.

Some of our favorite games to recapitulate sight words are the 'snow ball' game and 'hit the bug' game.
In the snow ball game , words are written on white paper. Children crumble them up and have a snow fight. Whenever i say freeze, they stop and read the word closest to them.

In 'hit the bug' game, words are written on a chart and children use a swatter to hit the word that is called out.

I printed sight word charts from Pinterest. I am unable to find its original source.Once i do i will definitely update. Children read the words during center time.

I also took an idea from Dr jean's sight to make a sight word album . Children use the sight word wands to read words from the album.

This is my sight word wall. The words are from www.mrsburgen.blogspot.com

My kids enjoy all these activities and learning happens without any stress.

Saturday, 30 November 2013

I have always dreaded the subject of math. When i finished high school, i was ecstatic that i would have nothing to do with this subject. But my euphoric state didn't last too long as i had to encounter the subject once again in school, but this time as a teacher. Well it hasn't been an easy journey :) but kindergarten math is definitely more enjoyable than high school math.
Bringing in the fun element in math lessons can be challenging and i am always looking for hands on activities to get my children excited about the subject. But surprisingly all children perform extremely well in mathematics compared to other subjects.
My school works with a non profit organization called Jodogyan which helps in designing innovative curriculum for mathematics. I owe a lot of my own learning about teaching math to them. You could visit their web site for more information: http://jodogyan.org/
In this post i am going to share one to one correspondence activities that i do with my kids. Some of them have been devised by me and the others are the ones i have learnt while working with Jodogyan. Most of them are small group activities. When parents ask me how they can recapitulate concepts at home, i always recommend them to try out the ones that we do during center time as children are more engaged and it works better than worksheets.

In this activity, numbers and corresponding number of dots are written on flip flops. Children read the number and match them to the flip flop with dots.

In this activity, children count the holes in the apples and put corresponding number of pipe cleaners as worms.

In the button jar activity, children look at the number on the jar and place buttons accordingly.

Children count the buttons on the shirt and clip clothespin

This is a simple number chart. Children look at the number and use various manipulatives to count.

This is a number game which children play in pairs. They roll the dice and put the corresponding number of foam plugs on the train.

Numbers are given to the children. They count the beads and string them to make bead necklaces.

This game is played in a large group. Different patterns are made for children to decorate with uni fix cubes.

Number dot cards are given to children to count and match.

I will soon do another post on how i do counting of numbers and number recognition with my kids.

Thursday, 28 November 2013

I am going to share the names of few books that i read with my children during the unit of sea animals.

Commotion in the ocean was used to introduce the topic. The book has rhyming words and colorful illustrations.
Rainbow fish by Marcus Pfister and Swimmy by Leo Lionni are always liked by students. These books can also be used to talk about concepts of sharing and group work.
Any book by Eric Carle is a huge hit in my class. We read A house for the Hermit Crab and Mr Seahorse.

As a follow up activity, children made their own crafts.

We also did a reading of non-fictional books by scholastic. Children loved exploring the books on killer whales, dolphins and sharks.

I felt the content of these books were meant for the age group of 6-8 years. However the illustrations were great and language can always be modified for young children.
If you would like to purchase these books in India, you could go to Flip kart.com

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

I have always found the sea and the world under the sea fascinating. Living in a land locked city all most all my life, i never got to experience the joy of being near the ocean. I was 18, when i first visited Mumbai and got the first exposure of the sea. It was a wonderful experience which i really can't put in words but i know that when i am near the sea i am the happiest person on Planet Earth. The smooth sand, the expanse of the ocean,the sound of the waves, i love everything about the ocean. I have had an opportunity to be on many beaches across the world since my first experience. And each one has been special.

Since i have been so verbose about my love for the ocean , it is but obvious that when it comes to teaching the unit of sea animals in class i am always over the moon. It is my favorite unit and my kids enjoy learning it it as much as i enjoy teaching it.

I completed the unit last month in my class and it was a great success. My little ones picked up vocabulary like "Crustacean"," Mammals","Sea weed", "corals" and many more words which honestly i did not expect them to learn. I had purchased the ocean unit by Deanna Jump. It had some wonderful information and templates.

I am sharing some pictures of how the unit turned out in my class.

We talked about parts of a fish and named few fishes that we knew. The most common one was the clown fish. Thanks to 'Finding Nemo' ! :)

We talked about sharks. It sure got the boys super excited!!

Children also sang the five little sharks song and enacted it using stick puppets.

I made some animal charts-few had facts and others had wordings from the book called commotion in the ocean. We used these to read and circle sight words done in class.

We talked about jelly fish and Octopus and children made their own crafts

I made a mural on the back wall of my class. It consists of all the craft that children did related to the unit.

I also hung a fishing net, which i proudly procured from Cochin,one of my beach destinations. :)

We also talked about pirates and did a little role play. Children wore pirate hats and loved saying "ARGH"

We rounded up the unit by doing a graph on favorite sea animals

I will do another post of the books we read on the topic and will share some worksheets which the children did as a recap.

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About Me

I am an educator who has taught kindergarten for 11 years and love every moment of it. I started this blog to share ideas with educators and parents and to help make learning fun and exciting for children. Apart from being a passionate teacher, I am also a beach lover, a coffee addict, a book junkie and an avid traveler. I would have been consumed by wanderlust had I not taken the plunge into the world of teaching. My life and work is pretty much determined by a beautiful quote by Maya Angelou, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."